


So Show Me Family (I've Been Trying to Do it Right)

by problematic_pleasures



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kisses, Fluff, Not Strictly FFH Compliant, Pining, Post-Endgame, References to Canonical Character Death, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 11:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19852639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/problematic_pleasures/pseuds/problematic_pleasures
Summary: Pepper has never been one for making rash decisions. Maybe that's why it takes her until Peter is in college to accept what's been a long time coming.





	So Show Me Family (I've Been Trying to Do it Right)

**Author's Note:**

> I started this around the same time as my other peeper spiderpotts fics but I forgot where I wanted it to go, so I wrapped this up quick with some fluff and kisses!
> 
> Enjoy!

Tony was always the one making risqué decisions; it’s less that Pepper considered herself above such things and more like...well, if one person is already making all the bad decisions, the other needs to have at least _some_ common sense, right? So Pepper’s always kept herself prim and proper as often as possible. She prides herself on being professional yet powerful, and enjoys watching assholes cower under her glare. She’s never had an affair—though god, there were times she wanted to—and she’s never said anything disparaging about a rival company unless it was worded nicely enough to _almost_ be a compliment.

Peter Parker throws all of this carefully crafted professionalism out the window. 

It doesn’t happen immediately. The grief is too raw for that, for both of them. 

Tony’s barely been dead a month when Peter shows up at the cabin door, drenched from the downpour of rain. Even soaked to the bone, Pepper can tell he’s been crying, so she ushers him in and gets him wrapped in a clean change of clothes and makes two steaming mugs of hot cocoa. 

“He left me a recording,” Peter chokes out when there’s nothing but dregs of chocolate swirling around the bottom of their mugs. “I...I finally listened to it.”

“Oh, Peter.” Pepper wraps him in a hug quickly, because she knows the anguish in his voice. Tony had left her a recording too, one just for her ears; he’d left one for Morgan too, to watch when she’s older. Pepper’s toyed with listening to it a couple times but always puts it back. “I’m so sorry.”

Peter clings to her. “I miss him so much.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I know, kid, I’m so sorry.” She kisses the top of his head and stays there, holding him as he trembles and sobs. She strokes his hair and lets him hold her tight enough that it feels like her ribs might creak under his weight. 

She doesn’t ask him what was on the recording and he doesn’t tell. She holds him until his eyes are drifting shut and his sobs have lessened to sniffles. After she untangles herself from Peter’s arms, she guides him to the couch and gets a bed made up for him. 

His eyes are red as he stares up at her. “Sorry,” he croaks.

“No, Peter. Don’t apologize.” She tucks the blankets in around his sides and rests her hand against his forehead. “Don’t apologize,” she says again. 

Peter swallows and nods. Tears cling to his eyelashes as he blinks. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

“You come get me if you need anything.” 

After that, it’s a slow unraveling of Pepper’s painstakingly constructed persona. 

It’s Peter coming by to help take care of Morgan. It’s Peter teaming up with Pepper when she takes the Rescue suit out from time to time. It’s Peter accompanying Pepper to events that would’ve otherwise been painfully lonely, full of pitying looks without Tony at her side. It’s Peter showing up late at night because he couldn’t sleep and knows Pepper will be awake. It’s Peter sitting with her on the couch when the grief is so strong it threatens to drag her under like a dingy in a storm. 

_Peter. Peter. Peter._

It’s not every time, not all the time. Sometimes Happy babysits, or Rhodey acts as Pepper’s dates for events, or any of the other Avengers join Rescue for some light day-saving. Pepper has other friends who comfort her and other friends who stay up with her when the nightmares get to be too much. 

But any time it’s Peter, Pepper feels herself falling down a dangerous rabbit hole of emotions. 

“You deserve to be happy,” Rhodey tells her one evening. They’re out for drinks after another charity gala. He looks tired but happy, which is about how Pepper feels. “Peter makes you happy.”

“Peter is a child,” Pepper replies sharply. She’s had this conversation enough times with herself to know how it’ll go. 

Except, Rhodey doesn’t follow the same restrictive train of thought that her subconscious does. “Is he, though? He’s a sophomore in college now and he’s saved the world half a dozen times. You’re still gonna call him a kid?” 

Pepper blinks. Sometimes, she forgets how quickly time passes. Years fly by in seconds and minutes drag on for eons. It’s all relative, and somehow, without her really noticing, she’s managed to keep up this song and dance with Peter for four years. She knocks back the rest of her whiskey sour and shakes her head. 

When she looks over, Rhodey is grinning. “You deserve good things in your life, Pepper.”

“I’ve got them.” She thinks about Morgan, and being Happy’s best woman at his wedding, and how Stark Industries is flourishing. Inevitably, though, she does think of Peter too. “I’ve got them,” she says again, insistent. 

“What’s one more good thing?” Rhodey lays his hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright.” He finishes off his own bottle of beer and stands. “I need to get going.”

Pepper doesn’t stand and Rhodey doesn’t let go of her shoulder. “Okay,” she says.

Rhodey hesitates a moment longer before squeezing her shoulder. Then he’s gone, off into the crowd of the bar. If Pepper focuses, she can hear the door open and a rush of cold air billow in as Rhodey slips out into the night. 

Pepper retrieves her phone from her clutch and considers texting Peter. He’s awake, surely. He keeps the same kind of hours Tony did, whether it’s because of tinkering or superheroing or simple insomnia. She thumbs over his contact picture before locking her phone.

“Not tonight,” she tells herself, and orders another drink. 

Peter comes straight to the cabin when he comes home for summer break. Even though Pepper’s expecting it, a thrill still rushes through her at seeing his beat up ‘98 Volvo pulling up in the driveway. She meets him at the door and watches him walk the short distance from his car to the porch. He’s in an MIT sweatshirt with a dufflebag slung over his shoulder, and wearing a broad, toothy grin as he takes the steps. 

“Pep,” he greets. He does that a lot these days, without thinking. Pepper hasn’t told him how it makes her feel. At first it had been almost too hard to bear but now it delights her, quietly, deep in her chest. 

She draws him into a hug as soon as he’s close enough and he goes easily. He’s tall enough that Pepper has to lean up to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “Hey, Peter,” she says softly. 

When they pull back, it’s only far enough to grin at one another. Pepper can feel her cheeks heating up—but the tips of Peter’s ears are bright red, too. 

“It’s good to see you,” she says as Peter finally steps back. 

“Yeah, you too.” Peter’s gaze flits down to his feet as he shuffles back and forth for a moment before looking up again. “Morgan around?”

“Not tonight.” Pepper doesn’t tell him that it was sort of planned, that Morgan had offered to be out of the house with a grin on her face. She’s too smart for her own good sometimes, Pepper swears. “She’s at a friend’s for a sleepover.” Pepper gives him an apologetic smile. She knows Peter makes the trips out to see Morgan just as much as he comes to see Pepper.

Except Peter’s face brightens and Pepper thinks, _maybe not._

“Cool,” Peter says. He hitches his bag on his shoulder. “So…”

“Sorry,” Pepper says as she realizes they’ve just been standing at the door, unmoving. “Come inside.”

Peter hitches his bag over his shoulder again and steps around Pepper to get inside. He moves around the cabin comfortably. It makes sense, he’s spent so much time here over the years since the Snap, but it still ignites a thrill low in Pepper’s gut. He drops his overnight bag on the couch and toes off his shoes on the rug—he keeps them close for quick getaways, Pepper knows, or for the times when the nightmares are too much and he needs to go on a walk.

“Pep?” Peter calls, and she realizes he’s moved to the kitchen while she was lost in her thoughts. “You coming?”

She steps inside and closes the door behind her. “Yeah. Yeah, sorry.”

Peter gives her a dazzling smile when she follows him into the kitchen. He’s already got two tumblers with scotch on the rocks filling them up. The pour is hefty, but Peter’s grin is wide, so Pepper accepts the glass and taps it against Peter’s and they drink, eyes never drifting from each other. 

This isn’t the first time they’ve shared a drink. They’re shared plenty over the years, and every time Pepper’s thoughts are the same:

_Now’s my chance. It’s the perfect opportunity. If it goes poorly, we just blame it on the alcohol._

But she never tries anything. She doesn’t shuffle closer until their hands resting on the countertops brush; she doesn’t lean in to kiss him, even when his head is tilted at just the right angle, inviting. She doesn’t reach for the collar of his stupid plaid overshirt to haul him close and she doesn’t say a word. 

“Pepper, you alright?” Peter asks. His glass is almost empty as he sets it aside.

“Just thinking,” she replies as she licks the stray taste of scotch off her lips. She hasn’t eaten in a couple hours and it feels like the liquor is already going to her head. 

Peter’s grin turns crooked, endearingly awkward. “Anything I can help with?” He takes a step closer. 

His hand brushes her on the counter, and her fingers twitch. His head is tilted. He’s blushing and his eyes are darting from her eyes to her lips to her eyes again.

“Oh,” Pepper says as realization dawns on her. 

All this time she’s been putting off the inevitable. She’s been under the impression that Peter was—unwittingly—crumbling her resolve against doing something crazy like kissing him. She’s been so caught up in keeping that distance, in stopping herself from taking that step, she didn’t even realize Peter was falling for her. Falling _in love_ with her. 

Or, for that matter, that _she’s_ been falling in love with _him_ ever since that first rainy night. 

“Oh,” Pepper says again as she leans in, and Peter meets her halfway. 

His hand comes up to cup her cheek; he thumbs over her cheekbone. The kiss tastes like scotch and summer air and Pepper presses closer. Peter’s other hand, the one skimming her fingers, moves suddenly to grip her by the waist instead. 

“Peter,” she gasps softly. 

“Pep,” he responds in kind. 

They kiss again, gentler but thrumming with heat, before they pull apart just far enough to press their foreheads together.

“You have _no_ idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” Peter says, voice thin. “I just, I thought you’d never want. That. But the look on your face, and, y’know, I thought fuck it! And my roommate, his name’s Chris, he told me to just, just _go_ for it.” 

Pepper smiles. She twists enough to set her glass of scotch on the counter before laying both hands against Peter’s chest. “I kept telling myself it was reckless, and that reckless things were Tony’s specialty.”

Peter grins. “But now?”

There will be a scandal when the paparazzi find out—Pepper dating someone nearly twenty years her junior? The starry-eyed mentor of her deceased husband, no less? Rhodey will never let her live this down, and she’ll probably get some sort of shovel talk from May but...

Pepper kisses him again and says against his lips, “Fuck it.” 


End file.
